Sam Dillon is a saxophonist, recording artist, composer and native New Yorker. A prolific soloist and sideman, Dillon has featured on over 40 studio recordings and toured across the world, garnering praise as one of the most defining tenor saxophonists of the moment. He has worked with an extensive list of Big Bands including the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Mingus Big Band, The Birdland Big Band and The 8-Bit Big Band, for which he was awarded a Grammy Certificate for participating in 2022. Dillon is also the director of the jazz programme at Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts, where he has acted as both a teacher and administrator for the past six years. Having amassed the accolades from cutting his teeth in the jazz capital of the world, he shares his tips for the best jazz clubs in the Big Apple.
I’m usually at Birdland every Friday with The Birdland Big Band and I sometimes play with my quartet at Django as well. Cellar Dog and Smalls are West Village hotspots. At Cellar Dog you have to be ready to get a little funky, it’s not your regular jazz club. It’s harder to get a gig at Cellar Dog because the hours are different. It’s interesting there because shuffleboard and ping pong is going on at the same time as the music. When I was a young kid, I used to go hear Chris Potter or Joe Lovano play and there’d be guys screaming in the background because they just got a shot at ping pong. I thought they were screaming because the jazz solo was so good. It’s a wild place that attracts a lot of stockbrokers showing up with their dates not even knowing it’s a jazz club. George Garzone and his students from the Manhattan School of Music could be checking out the wildest saxophone soloist while some guy from Wall Street is just playing ping pong with his buddies. The musicians will play ping pong too. I’ll never forget one time when I went and I was fanboying out watching Seamus Blake and Bill Stewart play ping pong. The music will go on until 2 or 4 in the morning. It’s a wild scene, it’s very New York. I’d suggest Cellar Dog if you want the full New York experience.
If you want to go to somewhere more authentic then I’d suggest Smalls – a downstairs bar in a fairly small room set up with benches. It’s a real jazz club. It probably holds around 100 people and the best jazz musicians in the world play there. Everyone from the Mingus Big Band has led a group that’s played there at some point. It’s the jazz club in the West Village – as well as Village Vanguard. The difference between Smalls and Vanguard is that Smalls is more accessible whereas Vanguard has more of an elite feel to it. At Vanguard the bar isn’t right by the stage, whereas the bar is right by the stage at Smalls, so it gives off a warmer vibe. At Vanguard you’re more likely to see a more serious performance whereas Smalls is a bit more casual. It feels like you’re witnessing history at Vanguard. Smalls used to be owned by this guy Mitch who has since started his own jazz club in Brooklyn called Ornithology, which is an even funkier place. Smalls is a place that every jazz musician will know, and people come from all over the world to play there. Any jazz musician who is visiting NYC is trying to book at Smalls.
Peter Howarth has been the style director of British GQ and the editor of Arena, British Esquire and Man About Town. He is the co-founder and CEO of London creative agency SHOW and managing director of Secret Trips
